From Acorns to FishWhat a difference 213,667,200 seconds make. That's 2473 days, by the way.

My Friend, David.The smallest gestures can sometimes have the greatest impact on your life

Tim

About the author...Ever since I picked up my first copy of GamesMaster back in June 2004 at the tender age 11 it was pretty clear that was what I wanted to do, and having successfully had my amateur reader review of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on PS2 (hey, it was a fairly good game) printed in the following issue was what sealed the deal. And now, almost a decade later I find myself here at GamingLives. Call it fate, call it coincidence, call it… What’s that…? Oh, apparently it’s called the internet. Well, I guess it’ll have to do.

Now my gaming habits are more orientated to single player. I dip my toes in the hostile multiplayer waters, but other than the odd game of Gears of War and Battlefield, with a few others now and then in between, the online stuff usually goes unnoticed with me. I play games because I like to immerse myself, be that through a gripping story, an engrossing world, cinematic gameplay, a mix of all three, or something else entirely. My preferences mean that I don’t really play sports games or fighters, and I tend to avoid JRPGs and most racing games (anything from Criterion, however, and I’m there). But other than that I’ll play anything: FPS, RPG, open-world, stealth, platformer, you name it. If you’re talking about my favourite game of all time, it’s joint between Grand Theft Auto IV and Uncharted 2 (anyone who knows me will testify that I’m a huge Uncharted fanatic), but I love BioShock, Mass Effect, Portal, the Batman: Arkham games and many more almost as much. I’m also a bit of an Achieve-o-holic as well, although I’ll never play a game with the sole purpose of boosting my Gamer Score. My philosophy is that if I enjoy a game enough and I think that I can obtain most, if not all, Achievements without too much trouble I’ll go for it.

I have fuzzy memories of where my gaming obsession started: mid 1990s, a Game Boy with a Mario game, Donkey Kong on the SNES, and then getting my very own PlayStation where I was introduced to the likes of Crash Bandicoot, Driver and Tomb Raider. From there I graduated to a Game Boy Colour, PS2, XBOX, Game Cube, DS and PSP, where GTA, Halo, Call of Duty, Max Payne, God of War, Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell and many more were added to my gaming repertoire (yeah, I was too young to play most of these at the time, but hey, I turned out alright…). And now for the current generation I’m on my third XBOX 360 (yep, count ‘em), a PS3 and more recently a PS Vita and a 3DS XL. What a waste of money some might say, and admittedly altogether that’s probably over a couple of grand I’ll never see again. But the memories they’ve provided make it all worthwhile. I remember when the Reapers invaded, when Zakhaev set off that nuke, and when Wheatley accidentally reactivated GLaDOS. I remember discovering the true identity of the Origami Killer, being stranded in the Rub’ al Khali desert, and finding out what the phrase “Would you kindly” actually meant. I remember entering the All Weapons cheat for the first time, buying and upgrading weapons from that mysterious Merchant, and my 360 dying from the Red Ring of Death. These are moments no other medium can ever replicate in quite the same way; moments of joy, sadness, excitement, fear, life, death, love, hate. Its proof that there’s more to gaming than shooting people in the face, shouting abuse down a headset, and a short, fat plumber.

And for those who can’t see beyond that? Well, it’s their loss.

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